Date:    Wed, 1 Apr 1998 09:39:17 -0500
<br>From:    "George S. Cole"  gscole[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARK.SHIP.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: THIS X SUCKS
<br>
<br>Relative to Judi's comments, and going back to memories of a rural
<br>childhood on a small poultry farm (in Delaware) in the 1940s & 1950s,
<br>both dogs & snakes could be called egg suckers.  With uncaged chickens,
<br>or other poultry for that matter, it was not unusual for range-fed
<br>(today's term) birds to lay an egg, or start a nest, outside of the
<br>chicken house.  If a dog had found out what raw egg tasted like, the
<br>farmer had a problem.  (Freshly laid eggs might be broken for a number
<br>of reasons, including:  too many eggs in the nest; & the chicken hadn't
<br>consumed enough calcium to develop the 'proper' shell.)  Egg-sucking
<br>dogs were those that had learned to intentionally crush the shell of an
<br>egg to get to the contents.  Concurrently, such dogs might seek out
<br>nesting sites, even if in the chicken house, and eat eggs.  A female dog
<br>might show pups how to do the same thing.  If egg-sucking dogs couldn't
<br>be kept away from nesting areas, the farmer could think that it was best
<br>to get rid of the dog (in some way).  Thus, egg-sucking dogs weren't
<br>appreciated.  [If raw egg material was fed to dogs, the material was
<br>mixed with other items of food, to disguise the egg content.  Absolutely
<br>no egg shell was to be in the mix.  Supposedly, raw egg improved the
<br>dog's coat.]
<br>
<br>Snakes would swallow an egg, crushing the shell once the egg was inside
<br>of the snake.  Thus, the phrases that compare a person to an egg-sucking
<br>snake.  [Unlike dogs, snakes were not seen as being "natural" farm
<br>animals.  They were unwelcome intruders, especially if they ate small
<br>poultry.]
<br>
<br>As a pre-schooler, I was aware of the "egg-sucking dog" phrase many
<br>years before I encountered related uses of the term.  Comparatively
<br>speaking, egg-sucking dog is an innocent phrase.
<br>
<br>Also, years before today's concern with food poisoning, it would not be
<br>unusual to hear a person talk about punching small holes (there are
<br>several ways to do it, without destroying the overall structure of the
<br>shell) in both ends of an egg, and sucking the contents out of the egg.
<br>For macho teenagers, it would be a way to show off at a party.
<br>
<br>George
<br>